Report
Valens Research

WTR - Embedded Expectations Analysis - 2019 10 15

Aqua America, Inc. (WTR:USA) currently trades above recent averages relative to Uniform Earnings, with a 37.8x Uniform P/E. At these levels, the market has bullish expectations for the firm, but management may be concerned about their acquisitions and organic growth potential.

Specifically, management may be concerned about their progress towards closing several municipal acquisitions, and they may lack confidence in their ability to continue growing. Furthermore, they may lack confidence in their ability to close the Peoples transaction, and they may be overstating the potential value of their DECLORA acquisition.
Underlying
Essential Utilities Inc.

Aqua America is the holding company for regulated utilities providing water or wastewater services in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, New Jersey, Indiana, and Virginia. The company's operating subsidiary, Aqua Pennsylvania, Inc., provides water or wastewater services and its service territory is located in the suburban areas in counties north and west of the City of Philadelphia as well as in other counties in Pennsylvania. The company's other regulated utility subsidiaries provide similar services in other states. In addition, the company's market-based activities are conducted through Aqua Infrastructure, LLC and Aqua Resources Inc.

Provider
Valens Research
Valens Research

In 2009, just as the dust was settling from the last major equity and credit market crises, we launched a boutique research firm with the intention of breaking Wall Street’s biases and broken incentives:

  • GAAP and IFRS have failed to provide rules for reliable financial statement reporting
  • Stock analyst recommendations are not grounded in disciplined financial analysis
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We sought to provide investors and company analysts with a source of information that changed all that.
Many years later, our business model remains because little has changed on Wall Street.

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  • The governing accounting bodies have created more leeway for mis-estimates and mis-classifications as financials have become unwieldy and overwhelming

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Analysts
Valens Research

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